I’m trying very hard to minimize interruptions while I’m teaching. I don’t mean the internet or the phone or whatever. That’s actually not too bad…for example, Bill called today during Jenny’s reading time (a tedious and unpleasant daily ordeal) and I waved Fritz and the phone off.

Even Peter and Mary aren’t too bad with snack and entertainment requests.

No, the worst offenders are the older kids with their “I need help”s and their “Can I do art instead of math”s and their “She breathing so loudly I can’t think”s. We’re working on it. Maybe in 10 years, we’ll have order and discipline.

However, my children do have permission to interrupt if it’s really important. Like the house is on fire. Or somebody is bleeding profusely (tough call, though…sometimes I neither want to know nor care about injuries caused by lack of intelligence).

And hawk sightings. Really. It’s tough to be 12 and to know that Mom will kill you if you bother her, but know that Mom would really want to stop school to watch a broad-winged hawk. Especially when they are uncommon but migratory at this time of year.

Fortunately, I recognized his hopping from foot to foot as either a desperate need to go to the bathroom (but he’s too old for that) or that he wanted to tell me something very exciting, so I stopped, and we watched the hawk. Very cool.